That is the ball-sharing issue. If you hold the ball 15 seconds in each 20 possession, will you still think other player could keep running with high energy level without touching the ball? You will get bored and stop running.
Sure, a start. Dude, I'm not being hostile, sometimes stats isn't the best way to look at things. Let's me say this since the last time I didn't have time to talk to you more about stats. Stats, is not just a number. It's aggregate number. And every time you aggregate some detail is lost. Sometimes stats does a wonderful job of giving us the big pictures, making quick points etc, if we have that right stats, other times not. We rely a lot on stats because in most cases we don't have time to consume every details. But the time the fans devoted in watching every game every play, they can sometimes have a real good understanding of what's going on without looking at the stats, which by nature is a summary of certain aspects and maybe biased. Alas, if you break your stats down to account for the whole picture? It's actual play by play. Why else do you think GM's standing in the tunnel watching games if they can get all the necessary information sitting in his office staring at the numbers? Now, stats is useful, often times. But I won't dwell on stats knowing stats.
I agree completely. I just don't know what you could use. You would need to measure the number of passes per possession obviously as a start, but I'm not sure that the NBA using basic stats has a way of measuring ball movement. Assist% alone is a weak measurement as Rafer can dribble up the court and pass to Luther Head for a heat check 3 pointer who proceeds to make it. Would you consider this good ball movement? Obviously not. Assists I think can help measure more the quality of the shots taken more than if a team is really moving the ball although in the example above that probably wasn't the greatest quality shot.
Just a point to consider also... stats show trends. So if we are looking at the "assist stats" from when Tmac is with us as far as percentages go and they are lower than the "assist stats" from when Tmac is out with an injury, that would show a trend of us moving the ball better on offense. But in fact the opposite was true. The trend (ie assist stats) showed that we get a better percentage of assisted field goals when Tmac is on the court. I completely agree that watching every play is better than looking strictly at numbers... heck if that was true I would have never noticed Chuck But stats do have a place in helping to see trends in a concise manner. Which is what I think Durvasa wanted to get across, that even though it looks like a more fluid offense, how much of that is about offensive sets or improved field goal percentage rather than ball movement. I think there has been a definite progression (other than a few games where the team just looked sick and miserable on the court...shoot maybe they were with the flu running rampant through the team) in the way that the team looks, both with and without McGrady. Lord I am so happy to have people discussing logically on the board (I was beginning to worry a bit)
I don't really want to take a side in this argument at all, but when you consider a stat that varies wildly night-to-night like assisted field goal percentage does, 1.9% is not a statistically significant difference. You certainly can't say that the ball-movement better with T-Mac. You might can say that it's not worse, but statistically there's just not enough difference to say that it's better.
But if you think things through logically you cant have all the "T-Mac sucks, Rafer sucks, Adelman sucks, Yao sucks, Battier sucks, James sucks, heck the only thing that doesnt suck is my vacuum cleaner, and that sucks!" threads. The ball movement isnt better because McGrady is out. The ball movement is better because the team is "getting it."
Hasn't PPG climbed significantly since T-Mac's been out? Also, what about the number of Rockets scoring in double figures?
Starting with the Denver game, which most use as the turning point the Rockets are averaging 98ppg(95ppg before that). T-Mac played his usual minutes in the Chicago game, which is included in that run, and the team had its best offensive output of the season. As for more folks in double figures, well, think of all the shots T-Mac gets in a game, someone has to take those shots. Yao gets some, Head gets some, Rafer gets some, etc.... Its only natural that others get more points. Generally going to those starting and playing in T-mac's position. I mean, you can just throw the ball away those 20 times per game. Or you can say "T-Mac play", and take a 24 second shot clock violation in honor of the injured teammate. Or you can say screw it, these are the guys out there, shoot when you get a good shot. (which they did)
Well, it looked better on TV.. Yao has been kicking the ball out effectively, and everyone's trying to get open shots. Maybe the assists number doesnt look that much better, but we are getting more open looks because of efficient inside out. Tmac is the one who takes ridiculous jumpshots, and that does not look good on TV at all.
I know you deal with statistics for a living, and you probably know more about the field than I do. I imagine that your skepticism about its use in sports comes from experience, and I respect that. I certainly don't disagree with any of the points you made here. You say that stats are often useful, so why dismiss any reference to a statistic as "obsession"? I never claimed we could sum up everything that needs to be known about basketball, let alone ball movement, with a couple numbers. But statistics can strengthen what we know or shed doubt on what we think we know, if applied correctly. That's important, and that's what I'm shooting for. Besides that, I like numbers and it's fun. In response to previous points: So, more side to side ball movement during the possession. It's something Adelman has mentioned that the Rockets needed more of in the past. I think this type of movement has to do with the plays we're running. Less ISO or PnR plays on the wing from McGrady, and more "inside-out" type offense. When we try to post up Yao on one side, that will invariably lead to the defense loading up on the strong side. If they're fronting, we swing to the opposite side. Otherwise, Yao gets his post up or passes out the double team. That's certainly one type of movement we're seeing more of, because we're looking for Yao in the post more often, though I don't know if that's characteristic of the Adelman's Sacramento offense. I also don't know if that yields better quality shots than McGrady creating in a one-on-one or two-on-two situation on one side of the floor. 21 asts/g in last 8. 20.7 asts/g when T-mac has played. And per possession, it's virtually identical. Another one to look at may be assists/FGA. So, what percentage of field goal attempts end up in an assisted basket? Here, it's actually been slightly higher in the last 8 games compared to when T-Mac has played (26.3% to 25.7%). I think this is more a reflection of our abysmal outside shooting earlier in the season, though.
What about a comparison between total points scored/total FGA with Tmac and without Tmac. A higher % would mean the Rockets are more efficient with the ball which kinda indicates better ball movement.
Lot's of interesting comments in this thread. Thanks for the input. I wanted to look at our offense, relative to the strength of the opponent's defense, over the course of the season. I think this gives a more accurate picture of how our offense has been performing than simply looking at, for instance, PPG. So I came up with "Adjusted ORtg", which is just: Adjusted Ortg = 100 + ( Ortg - Opp Season Drtg) . Ortg, for those that don't know, if just points scored per 100 possessions. I also adjusted for whether or not we were at home or on the road. Here's a chart showing the results. I also highlight the period when T-Mac and Rafer missed games (or, in T-Mac's case, portions of games). I include adjusted ORtg for individual games (the bars), and also for the last 4 games (the line). So, an adjusted Ortg of 100 means that we scored, per possession, the same as what the team has yielded on average up to now, taking into account whether we were at home or on the road. Note, for instance, that our best offensive game of the season by this measure came at Chicago (still one of the better defensive teams, despite their record) on 12/22. That was with McGrady. Note also that our offense was improving in early December just before Rafer got injured and T-Mac started getting problems with his knee.
